


shades of grey in the candlelight

by tigerlilycorinne



Series: AUgust 2020 Short Fic [5]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Geonosian Zombies, Geonosis (Star Wars), Getting Together, Isolated Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s02e07 Legacy of Terror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25679560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlilycorinne/pseuds/tigerlilycorinne
Summary: Anakin and Rex are stuck in a tiny little shelter all alone, scavenging to stay alive during a Geonosian Zombie apocalypse.Rex insists he's only worried about Anakin scavenging in the collasped Geonsian nest because it's his duty to protect Anakin, nothing else, which Anakin knows isn't true.Anakin insists the nest is completely safe, which, well. We all know isn't true.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker
Series: AUgust 2020 Short Fic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856617
Comments: 19
Kudos: 103
Collections: AUgust 2020





	shades of grey in the candlelight

**Author's Note:**

> Note: the prompt “post-apocalypse” became just “apocalypse” at some point please don’t @ me. Title from Taylor Swift's "Getaway Car"

“Close the door, _close the door!_ ” Anakin found himself shouting before he’d even made it through himself. “ _Now, now now!_ ”

Rex stood there, waiting for him, his brown skin easy to spot against the pale desert sands. It almost looked as if his head was floating because of the similarly light shade of his ragged robe-like thing that Anakin had haphazardly sewn together a week ago out of literal ripped up provision sacks. 

“ _Now!_ ” Anakin shouted again, uselessly, and threw himself through the doorway of the old, metal-domed structure they had holed-up in. He could hardly call it a house, much less a home, but it was _theirs_ for now, and protection.

Rex slammed the door shut behind him as soon as Anakin hurdled through, throwing the bag he was hauling ahead of him, not daring to look back at the chattering creatures clamoring on his heels. The door clanged. The automatic lock whirred.

These days, protection was all anyone could ask for. 

“When I tell you to close the door, Rex, close the door!” Anakin struggled to get his breath back under control– running in the thin sand proved easy enough, even in the relentless Geonosian sun, but he tried to keep his breathing down to keep the tiny particles of sand dust out when running short distances. “Kriff, I oughtta make us a couple of masks.”

“If I’d closed the door when you told me to, I would’ve shut you outside,” Rex replied dryly, flipping open the hatch to reveal a small barred circle of plexiglass and peering out. “I thought the dead Geonisians didn’t like the sunlight.”

“I thought so too.” Anakin joined Rex at the window, his chest brushing against Rex’s back as he leaned in to take a closer look. He ignored the way Rex shifted a little closer to the door, nearly pressed against it now. “Maybe they’re on new worms. Or a new Queen”

“Or,” Rex offered, “A new hatred for you. I think that’s much more likely.”

Rex smelled of soap, sweat, and the sun, his badly constructed slip hanging off of one shoulder like a maiden’s one-shoulder dress, only made of rough cloth. Somehow that was better; Rex, Anakin thought, didn’t take well to grace. He was abrasive and harsh, and so very strong. Stubborn and stoic to the last. 

“Well, someone’s gotta give those zombies a piece of their mind. You should give scavenging a go.”

“I have. Just not in the Geonisian hives.”

“ _Abandoned_ Geonosian hives.”

The undead Geonisians screeched and threw themselves against the sturdy metal door harder.

Rex hummed. “Obviously not…”

Anakin wondered if maybe, if he just stood there forever and never stopped looking out the window, Rex would turn around, and they would be chest to chest. Maybe Rex would acknowledge him. Maybe Rex would acknowledge _this_ , this tentative thing between them, the one tiny bloom of feeling in on the whole damn barren planet.

They were living together. Sleeping in the same bed. Washing with no curtain– they didn’t have enough material to make a curtain, and it was too much work, and besides, they had better things to do and Anakin was lazy and who even needed a curtain anyway? Not Anakin, for sure. They were the only two humans in an unknowable area. Stranded. 

They were going to get absolutely nowhere in this tight space, this minuscule dome that didn’t deserve to be a home, if they had to shuffle around a giant kriffing bantha in the room on top of it all.

He watched the zombies throw themselves against the door, which would never break at this rate, unconcerned. He listened to the thump of their bodies, their muffled shrieks through the thick metal. He listened to the soft sounds of Rex’s breathing, inches away, and imagined if they were pressed closer together, close enough for him to hear Rex’s heartbeat. 

He looked at the shine of sweat on the back of Rex’s neck and ran his finger lightly over the frayed collar of the robe Rex wore, remembering stabbing himself several times as he yanked thread through the unforgiving cloth. 

“General,” Rex murmured, a warning in his voice. Even the warning held the thick sense of longing.

Anakin dropped his hand. “Don’t call me that,” he whispered, inches from Rex’s ear, but he stepped back, forcing himself to say in a light tone, “Come see what I found.”

Rex turned then, when Anakin was a few feet away. A safe distance away. “When you were scavenging in hives full of undead Geonosians?”

“When I was scavenging.” Anakin loved this soldier. And he resented him like crazy. For his unbreakable resolve to stay away. Or his ability to. 

Rex scanned the barely lit room, two bare bulbs that Anakin had found and managed to wire hanging loosely from the ceiling and lighting up a table; a several of crates, one full of metal scraps and spare parts, another full of clothes, two more turned over as seating; a large plastic bin that they placed below the faucet poking out of the wall. Their tiny shared “bed”: a pile of blankets they’d found spread out on the floor over each other to cushion them against the hard metal floor.

Anakin watched him without even attempting to disguise his gaze– what was the use? Rex knew. Rex had to know.

“Ah.” Rex, having located the sack Anakin had hurled, hefted it up onto the table from where it had slumped against the wall. “Here’s the stuff worth all that trouble.”

Anakin grinned and propped his chin up on both his hands as Rex dumped the contents of the bag onto the floor with a loud jumble of sounds and took a seat across from him. 

“Ah.” Rex held up a rectangular battery. “I’m sure you’ll have a use for this.”

“One day, I’m going to convince you that electrical work is one of the few joys of life.” Right there, a couple of slots below you. “I could use it to send a message in tap-code, if I can find myself a few more pieces. We’ve already got some right here.” Anakin jerked a thumb to the crate of metal parts. The systems were down– some crazy madman who happened to be possibly the smartest person in the galaxy had managed to wipe all information and systems coding to nothing at all, no back ups anywhere. Communications were down. Intergalactic web was down. Radio was down. 

They were stuck here with screaming undead Geonosians screaming outside their door.

But plain old home-constructed signals could always be sent if someone else had the sense to craft a receiver. _And happen to be on a nearby planet with no interfering atmosphere,_ Rex had said when Anakin first brought it up, but he had smiled his rare, grim smile, and Anakin had decided it was worth a go.

Anything to get off this blasted desert planet. He hated sand.

And he hated living in this tiny little space. If he stood and stretched his arms out on either side of him, one hand on one wall, and Rex beside him, one hand on the opposite side of the circular room, their fingers would brush in the middle. It was too damn close for anyone to live with the love of their life, if the love of their life refused to admit they felt anything in return. 

“A hat.” Rex held up the next object: thick and woolen, knitted from the fur of something very soft.

“In case your head gets cold,” Anakin explained, gesturing to Rex’s shaved head. When they’d gotten stranded, Anakin had wondered whether Rex would mind growing his hair a bit, since they didn’t have anything to cut it with, since Rex never seemed to want to grow it before. He shouldn’t have wondered; Rex had a bag of things with him, and they weren’t weapons, save for a knife and a small number of ammo refills. They were hygiene supplies. Because of course.

Rex smirked. “Because Geonosis can get so cold.” 

“Oh,” Anakin said, watching Rex toy with the hat. It was a really ugly hat, pink and orange, the dye faded on one side where it had lain in the sun and bright on the other, the side that been on the ground. Rex wasn’t wearing his gloves, and the sight of his hands still felt strangely tender. Even after two weeks, they gave Anakin a twist in his heart. “You know.”

Rex pulled out item after item, his hands strong and calloused as he cracked open the thick plastic casing around a handful of bolts when the latch proved to be stuck, his hands gentle around a large container of water, as if fearful it might spill even though it was sealed tight. What had Anakin thought about Rex not being graceful? He was dead wrong. His hands were grace, his sharp jaw and bare arms, the flex of his muscles were grace.

The water sloshed as he set the large container down. At the sound of water, a thump sounded on the door again. “Lucky the plastic was thick, hey, General?”

“I wouldn’t have thrown the bag if the container wasn’t thick.” Anakin swallowed hard. The water in the pipes was clean enough to bathe in, which they did nearly every night because the water hadn’t shut off, and it felt luxurious to have endless _something_ , and because there was so much sand. But it wasn’t safe to drink, sourced from a well far off and barely filtered for dirt. And every time Anakin looked at Rex, _really_ looked, his throat went dry. 

Kriff, he wished they’d get off Geonosis. 

Rex, oblivious to Anakin’s dwindling mental health, shook the container a little more. “Do you think it’s filtered?”

“I hope so. If it isn’t, I lugged it all this way for no reason.” 

Rex rolled his shoulders and lifted it again, judging its weight, probably for the sole purpose of driving Anakin even more insane. “You could’ve used the Force.”

“That’s not how the Force works. You need to be able to focus.” Which was why Anakin never even tried difficult things with the Force anywhere near Rex. Rex himself was a world of distractions stuffed into one caring soul.

Rex sucked in a breath. “Oh, General.”

Anakin tried not to smile too hard. “Had to fight a couple of Geonosians for that one.” Rex snorted. “Live ones,” Anakin added, “And I didn’t get it from the hives.”

Rex opened the rations kit, his eyes wide. “Kriff, it’s _full_.”

“A thank you might be nice. Since fighting the natives for food doesn’t exactly make me feel charitable and kind.” Geonosians actually made Anakin a bit sick inside. In any case, Rex had to eat. Rex never complained about anything, but Anakin had watched him eat, or how his hand would stray to his stomach. He’d tried to get Rex to eat his portions, even when he was hungry, but Rex refused. 

If the undead Geonosians couldn’t smell the food, or in other ways sense it, if the fading of their screeching was anything to go by. They were _dead_ , anyway, but whatever Queen had them under her hive-mind control needed to feed and water her offspring.

“It’s every man for himself these days.” Rex brushed his knuckles against the back of Anakin’s hand, a touch as light as a dream. Anakin’s heart pounded against his chest. “But thank you.” Rex stared earnestly into Anakin’s eyes with those words, and Anakin caught his breath.

“I got it for me, too,” Anakin tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a tiny sigh. Rex’s fingers were resting loosely over his own open hand, warm and the whole fucking desert was warm, but Rex was a different kind of warm, gentle and tangible and here. “I, too, have nutritional needs.”

Rex smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Anakin stared at him helplessly, acutely aware of where Rex’s skin met his own, conducting a mental study of Rex’s brown eyes in this lighting, and trying not to close his fingers around Rex’s hand, yank the man across the table, and kiss him into the next standard week.

The last of the screeching stopped, and the undead beasts wandered off.

Silence fell. The whole galaxy became the two of them, Anakin stroking the side of Rex’s hand gently. 

Rex pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. “Suppose you should get washed up, then, if you were out in the sands all day.”

“Right, you’re right,” Anakin agreed immediately, though he didn’t mean it. What he wanted to say was that Rex couldn’t possibly expect him to strip down and take a bath after _that_. “You can go after me.”

“I went before you came in.”

“That was stupid of you. What would you have done if I came back while you were still in?”

Rex shrugged loosely and smiled wryly again. “Opened the door full nude, probably. You’d never let me live that down, huh?”

Anakin stared at him. “Never,” he echoed, and took his bath.

When he finished, he clambered out of the small tub awkwardly, too big for it, and squeezed out his hair as well as he could. They didn’t have anything to dry off with, so he swiped most of the water off with his hands and pulled his clothes on slightly damp.

He hadn’t looked over in Rex’s direction once– the last thing he needed was to start thinking about Rex while he was naked, and in full view of the one and only man he’d ever wanted. Rex was in the black underclothes clones wore under their armor, which he only wore to bed because it was stretchy and thin. Very underclothes-y. 

“Are you going to sleep?”

Rex tugged out a thick metal pipe from Anakin’s sack and tossed it into the crate of metal scraps. “In a minute.”

Anakin settled himself on the pile of blankets, shifting uncomfortably on the hard surface. The thin layer between him and the metal floor, meager though it was, was a lot more comfortable than the first few nights they’d slept there. They hadn’t many blankets, only Rex’s bedroll, and Anakin had had time to get used to the hard floor again. 

He watched Rex sorting through the objects he’d brought in, his back to Anakin, his shifting muscles barely visible in the pathetic light. Rex, working his way steadily through the pile, which could be sorted through in the morning, likely because he didn’t want to come lie by Anakin, because he’d have to pretend again, though he’d never admit it. 

Anakin closed his eyes. The backs of his eyelids were so much easier to bear.

The sound of Rex’s footsteps and the rhythmic clang of metal could lull Anakin to sleep before Rex even joined him in bed, and Anakin hoped it would, if only for one more night where he could continue on like this without snapping. This was how it was now, one day at a time.

He was almost asleep when there was a huge crash. 

“General!” he heard Rex shout. “ _Anakin!_ ”

He pushed himself up, fumbling for his lightsaber before once again realizing he didn’t have it. He opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t open your mouth! Cover your ears! Cover your nose!”

Anakin opened his eyes to see Rex rushing towards him, his hands waving frantically towards the same body parts on himself in demonstration: mouth, ears, nose. _I don’t have that many hands_ , Anakin thought, and said: “I don’t–” before Rex clapped a hand over his mouth. _Oh_. He could feel it now, slithering up the side of his neck. Slimy, cold. They looked pale green and reminded him of snakes, when he saw them, even though they were the size of worms, but he realized “worm” was correct; it didn’t feel scaly. It felt damp, like the fluids of the egg it must’ve just hatched from still clung to its skin. He covered his ears, and Rex covered Anakin’s nose. Rex’s other hand grasped at his neck, swiping hard. Anakin made a joking sound of protest at the light scratch Rex’s nail made on his throat.

“Shut _up_ , oh, Kriff.” Rex sounded genuinely panicked, so different from his normal, controlled mindset on the battlefield. “Get off him, get off him, _get off him_.”

He managed to swipe the Geonosian worm to the ground, and took his hand off of Anakin’s face to push himself up to standing. Anakin jumped up as well, watching the worm squirm on the blankets, slithering toward Rex’s boot.

“Don’t squash it on the blanket,” Anakin joked.

Rex actually shoved him, his voice shaking. “Shut _up, shut_ _up._ ” 

He kicked the wriggling green worm onto the metal floor and stomped down hard, squashing the thing beneath his boot. It smeared on the floor with a disgusting squelching sound, slimy. 

Rex shucked off his boots with hurried, shaking hands. And then he turned to Anakin, something wild in his eyes. Anakin felt his whole body light on fire with the way Rex was looking at him now. “If you had been taken– if it had gotten in you– I can’t imagine you ever not being yourself. That’s even worse than you dying.”

Anakin’s heart felt so big, it threatened to pour out of his mouth when he spoke. “You were just as much at risk the moment you covered me.” He gazed at the remains of terror draining from Rex’s face, slowly leaving the soldier to recover his unreadable, stoic facade.

Rex shook his head hard. “It’s my duty to protect you, sir.”

“We’re not at war anymore, Rex. You know I don’t like it when you call me that.” Anakin stared at the shining smear of slime on the floor, trying to let the moment die, tugging at his now-dry hair for tangles harder than he needed to. The tiniest little piece of Rex. Just that one moment, and Rex was back in his shell, as quick to hide himself from Anakin as he was to jump into battle. “And even if she’d gotten into my mind, I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Rex laughed, but it was shaky. “With all due respect sir, that’s not how it works.”

“ _Don’t call me that._ ” Anakin dropped his hands into his lap. “Force, I wouldn’t. If Barriss Offee could beg Ahsoka to kill her with the Queen in her mind, I can avoid killing the people I love.”

Rex was silent.

What had Anakin expected? When had Rex ever allowed himself a moment out of his wartime mindset, his rigid perception of ranks? Anakin would always be his superior, his commanding officer. His _General_.

Anakin sighed. “Goodnight, Rex.” He lay back down and rolled over.

He always slept with his back to Rex, curled a little, his knees pulled to his chest; Rex on his back, straight and forever orderly. When Anakin had rolled over and faced Rex, once, Rex had shifted uncomfortably and darted him little glances for several minutes, his breathing uneven. Anakin had asked if anything was bothering him. Rex had said no. Anakin, knowing the real answer, had rolled over anyway.

Something warm brushed against his back. A hand. 

Anakin stopped breathing.

It traveled over to his shoulder and gently tugged it down, until Anakin was lying on his back beside Rex, their shoulders pressed tightly together on their make-shift bed. Anakin turned his head to gaze at Rex. 

One of the lights was still on, and it shone on them at an angle that made Rex’s jawline look like a knife. The world was quiet. Rex’s throat bobbed. 

“Skywalker.”

“Hmmm?” Anakin could see, just barely, Rex’s eyes flick down, to his lips, and back up quickly. His throat went dry all over again, the press of Rex’s body against him suddenly feeling like a burning trail down his side.

Even in the shadow, Anakin could see Rex hesitating. He didn’t need sight to hear Rex swallow, to feel his own heartbeat try to fly out of his chest. He waited.

“Say it again.”

Anakin smiled and turned on his side, facing Rex. “I love you.”

Rex’s breath hitched, his lips parting. Inches away from Anakin’s own face, Rex closed his eyes and opened them again, his gaze filling with wonder as if seeing Anakin for the first time. This wasn’t wild, reckless fire. This was embers, steady and warm, ever-present, glowing softly between them. 

When Rex kissed him, _that_ was fire. Rex reached for Anakin, once more pushing him onto his back, straddling him carefully and cupping his face like Anakin was the last sip of water on a desert planet. Rex kissed Anakin like the galaxy couldn’t hold a candle to him. Tenderly, his fingers weaving their way through Anakin’s hair as Anakin rose to meet him. 

Anakin ran his hands down Rex’s body, one metal hand and one human hand. Rex didn’t flinch at his cold touch. 

“ _Please_ ,” Rex whispered against him, trembling in his arms.

Anakin smiled in the dark. “Say it back,” he whispered, “If you feel it too, say it back.”

Rex laughed breathlessly, the dim light shining against the curve of his back as Anakin pushed his hands up his shirt, slowly. “Of course I feel it back. I’m not stupid, Skywalker. I love you, you know that.”

“Anakin,” said Anakin. 

“Kriff, _please–_ ”

“It’s just a name, Rex, come on.”

“Anakin!” Rex burst out. “ _Anakin_ , I love you. More than anything in the whole kriffing galaxy, alright?”

Anakin gave him what he wanted, slowly, sweetly, in the soft light of their tiny little room.

When they were done, they didn’t have any clean nightclothes, but neither of them minded. They washed, and they didn’t have a curtain, but they didn’t mind that, either. Anakin let himself look. He didn’t even mind the ache.

Because Rex let himself look back.

Anakin decided he didn’t mind any of it– the small space, the crappy lighting, the curtainless washtub, their tiny bed. He could stand to live here forever, if Rex kept looking at him like that. 

“Skywalker–” Rex turned towards him, uncertainty clear on his face. “This isn’t a mistake, is it?”

Anakin looked up at Rex, who stood between his knees and gazed back, his chest flushed. “Who’s making the mistake then, you or me?”

“You,” Rex said, as if it was obvious. He looked down at where they held hands between them. “How could I be making a mistake on you?”

Anakin tugged him closer, pulling Rex down to his mouth. “No,” he whispered, smiling. “No, it’s not a mistake.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two so much! If you want to see more of them, they occasionally make an appearance on my tumblr @[starwars-but-its-stormpilot](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/starwars-but-its-stormpilot) and on my main @[tigerlilycorinne](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tigerlilycorinne)


End file.
